1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to document preparation support systems for inputting and editing a document to prepare a new document and more particularly, to a document preparation support system which effectively supports document preparation of document preparer based on document editorial design knowledge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In preparing a document, generally speaking, preparation of a document from its very beginning imposes a considerable amount of labor on a document preparer. This is because, in preparation of the document, he must decide not only the contents itself of the document but also, e.g., the layout of the document, the size and typeface of characters in the document which determine the impression and appearance of the finished document. Further, when the preparer is required to select one of combinations of colors as when it is desired to create a colored document, in particular, the ordinary preparer usually cannot select the suitable color combination.
For this reason, when it is desired to get a good-looking document satisfying preparer's intention and application, it has been conventional that the document preparer asks a document design expert known as an editorial designer to prepare the document, or the document preparer prepares the document by himself while holding a consultation with the editorial designer. However, the request of the document preparer to the editorial designer generally involves a lot of cost and time. For this reason, only limited types of documents have been sent to the editorial designers in actual circumstances. Meanwhile, there have been proposed techniques for supporting preparer's document preparation to produce a good document based on wordprocessors or desk top publishing (DTP) systems. Major one of such techniques is to accumulate good-looking documents which have been so far prepared and help a document preparer to re-use them, that is, to support preparer's document preparation. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-175965 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-304575 disclose a document processing system in which documents are previously classified and accumulated depending on different applications and one of the accumulated documents having the similar properties to a desired new document to be prepared is selected and for its re-use. In a document format applying method as another technique, on the other hand, one of a plurality of previously-prepared document formats is selected and the parameters of the selected document format are applied to a document to be newly prepared to obtain a relatively good quality of new document satisfying preparer's intention and application. An example embodying this method is such a system as a LaTex (Lamport. L. LATEX: A Document Preparation System, Addition-Wesley, 1985) which is used as a document editing system. There has also been proposed in these years a document editing system which analyzes the logical structure of a document and on the analysis result, selects and applies a suitable format, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-229364 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-180062.
However, in the method for re-using the past documents, the more the document examples to be selected are the more difficult it is for a document preparer to select one of the examples meeting his intention and application. Further, the less the document examples to be selected are the less the possibility of selecting one of the examples satisfying his intention and application is, which requires the preparer, after selecting the document, to again modify and correct the selected document. Furthermore, when the preparer cannot understand the system to such an extent that which part in the document example reflects his intention and application, he cannot judge the part in the document example to be re-used. Accordingly, ordinary document preparers could use the system only at the time of the preparation of such regular form documents as business letters.
Meanwhile, in the document-format applying method, so long as the selection of a document format is right, a certain constant level of quality of document can be obtained. However, since this is on a format basis to the best of its ability and such information inherent in the document being prepared as data on whether or not the document can be included in one page or data on the number of characters for a title is not utilized, it is impossible to expect a certain level of or higher level of quality of document. Further, since this method cannot always provide formats meeting document preparer's intention and application, he, after once preparing the document, has to modify or correct it again, in some cases. Furthermore, as in the past-document re-using method, when the preparer cannot understand the system to such an extent that which part in the finished document obtained through the format application reflects his intention and application, he cannot correct improper points generated under the inherent conditions of the document or improper points caused by the unsuitable selection of the format in the finished document. Accordingly, ordinary document preparers could not obtain always a desired document.
The both methods have had a problem that since the ordinary document preparer does not have such knowledge as editorial design nor how to reflect his intention and application on document, it is difficult to obtain such a document as to satisfy his intention and application, which results in that a certain constant quality of or higher quality of documents cannot be obtained unlike he prepares the document while holding a consultation with a design expert. Further, in either case, in general, fine consideration of how to reflect document preparer's intention on document readers having different backgrounds, positions, preferences, etc. is not paid to the both document preparation support systems, that is, preparer's intention cannot be fully transmitted to the document.